well that wasn’t a great experience

The strawberry plants above have magically appeared in one of the pots on the balcony – I think the last time we had strawberry plants was maybe 2007? 2008? Alas, the blog archives don’t tell me. Hopefully they’ll produce!

A nice, calming antidote to the rest of this post.

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Yesterday afternoon Don and I dragged ourselves out to do the grocery shopping. Horrible activity for a Saturday afternoon, but the only time we could really manage it – Don’s been absolutely slammed with work for the past couple of weeks.

We were returning home through our suburban back streets and had just negotiated a round-a-bout when a black 4WD (SUV) zoomed past us on the wrong side of the lane divider, pulled right in front of us and slammed on the brakes. This quite big, shirtless, bearded dude got out of the car and started screaming at us. “Are you trying to fuck with me?” (What?) “You’re trying to fuck with me!”. His less big, but also shirtless mate jumped out too and also started making his way toward us.

After much screaming, the upshot was that he thought Don was driving too slowly and took it as a personal slight.

The idea of Don driving too slowly anywhere is completely hilarious. This was a tiny back laneway and a quiet suburban street (pets and kids and such) – with a posted speed limit – which Don was obeying. And the car had been behind us for maybe 200m at most.

Nonetheless this was no time to be doing anything other than appeasement. Thankfully after a lot of screaming, aggression and threats, the dudes got back in their car (which had a small child in the back) and sped away.

We were both quite a bit shaken afterward. Being the very calm dude he is, Don doesn’t get shaken very easily – perhaps they teach “dealing with crazies” in bootcamp? I must ask. (No, they don’t. He just worked out the calm his own-self).

I wonder how people in these situations have the presence of mind to film them with their phones. I had my phone in my hand it it never once occurred to me to record the crazy. I only realised this morning that might have been an option – though maybe not because it could have just escalated everything. This dude was utterly unhinged.

And I wondered what on earth I would have done if I had been on my own. I *do* drive under the speed limit around those streets. Even almost 24 hours later I still don’t know how I’d handle such a thing.